I’ve always had a strong interest in art, ever since I was a kid. I used to draw and paint whenever I got the chance to and even did my year-long high school senior project on the subject of art. I took a photo of a sunset and recreated it using five different mediums, and wrote a paper about contemporary art. In that paper, I discussed how art has evolved over time and how what is considered art now, would not have been considered art in the past. Over the course of this semester, after doing all of these projects and having discussions in class, my understanding of art has evolved slightly from what it was before. Before, I made a statement in my paper that nowadays anything can be considered art. Now, I feel that that’s not entirely true; art is viewed differently by everyone, so what is considered art by one person, may not be considered art by another, so it all depends on the individual’s perception of what art is.
After taking this class, I’ve realized that my perception of art is very broad. Some people may think that some of the art activities we did this semester were silly and not really “art.” For example, the finger-painting activity and the automatic drawing. These seem like simple little things that anyone could do at any age, and that maybe don’t qualify as art. I’m not one of those people. I think that all of the different activities we did showed us the different forms of art there are out there. They also showed us that sometimes it’s more about the experience than the outcome. Not every piece I made came out like I hoped, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t proud of the work I put in or thought it was any less worthy of being called art.
My experience of art both in this class and in my life up to this point has been very positive. I love it. I love the process of making the pieces, and I love the feeling of completing an activity or piece. In my experience in this class, it was really awesome and fun to go back to the basics with activities like finger-painting and automatic drawing; they are so simple, yet so satisfying and calming. I got to relax and not stress about anything and just focus on the art and enjoy myself, which is awesome because there isn’t much free time for art in my life anymore. Overall, I loved my experience with art and the discussion and lectures about art over the past semester.
From talking to all of the SOA artists, I learned that a lot of the art majors started out in another major and then transferred into the School of Art. This was interesting to me because I would’ve thought that the art majors were people who have always known that art was the path they would take. In reality, a lot of them had an interest in art their whole life but didn’t originally plan on pursuing a degree in it. That just goes to show all of us that you never know where life is going to take you and that things don’t always turn out like you planned. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll end up deciding to pursue art since I’ve always had a strong interest in it, and maybe I’ll get to directly apply a large amount of what I learned and did in this class.
When I think about my future, I know that art, creativity, and design thinking will definitely tie into it. One part of my future that art will easily tie into is my work as an employee for the City of Long Beach. I do a wide range of things for the city already as a day camp counselor and my work with the after-school programs, in which I have to find, set up, and do arts and crafts with the kids. I definitely think that I could try some of the activities we did for this class with the kids at my work. I’m always looking for new fun activities to try with them and this class gave me some great ideas.
I recently changed my major from management to accounting and I’m not sure how that will pan out. However, that’s the plan for now so that’s the future I’ll be using. When I look at my future in accounting, it’s a little tough to picture how art could tie into my day to day work. However, it’s possible that I may get put into a team to try to solve some sort of problem, and I may have to use creativity to try to solve the problem. I also may have to use observation and creativity to find new ways to save money for the company or clients that I’m working for. I’m not sure if I plan to do accounting for small businesses or large corporations, so that may make a difference in how the things I learned in this class can be applied to my job. If I do accounting for a large corporation and ever end up managing a large group of accountants, I could apply creativity, expression, and observation to finding successful ways to manage a team that gets results.
There are some activities we’ve done that I may get to directly apply to my job in the future. For example, I may use the things I learned from the UI/UX Design activity if we ever need to update any of our accounting software or operating systems. I may be asked for suggestions on how to improve our software and make it easier to use or more efficient/effective; this will require the use of the same thought process from the UI/UX Design activity. Another example is the Design Thinking Applied to Life activity. As an accountant, I may need to help my clients plan ahead for their financial futures. I may not be making them a personal five-year plan for their life, but I could use those thought processes from the activity to give them good financial advice.
Overall, the art, creativity, and design thinking that I learned in this class will definitely be applied later in my life. Since I’ve always had a personal interest in art, not only will it likely be applied in some aspect of my job, but in my personal life as well.
Delaney McCombs 